In certain raster-scan type display systems, it is typical to regard the display screen as being a five hundred by five hundred pixel (picture element) matrix and to provide Z-axis or intensity control on a per pixel basis. Due to the fixed locations of the raster pixels, image line presentation can, if not compensated for, appear in the display in a staircase structure, i.e., a so-called "jaggied" presentation. Anti-aliasing or anti-jaggied (de-jaggied) display compensating systems and methods have thus evolved, and are in two presently known general versions.
In one general type of anti-aliasing system and method, the industry looks to anti-jaggied software to drive the image into a terminal which is particularly and necessarily dedicated to the driving software. This approach is characterized by severe performance and data handling time limitations.
In the other general type of anti-aliasing pixel raster approach, the industry looks to higher performance through firmware. The firmware is situated in a display terminal which receives the image data and the firmware manipulates the image data bits through a fixed algorithm and then writes same into a frame buffer memory so as to have the image data weighted according to a fixed pattern.
While the firmware approach presents less of a performance problem, as above noted, both known approaches have what many users view to be a decreased focusing, i.e., a lower than desired resolution in the amount of image one can view. Thus, the resulting image is not the result of real time reproduction, but is the product of a practice in which information is added to the image defined in the original image data.